Overview

Provides information on new features for BA version 5.2. Improvements include simplified JDBC installation and easier data source creation, and exciting plugins on the community marketplace.

Pentaho Business Analytics 5.2 delivers new features, including simplified JDBC installation and easier data source creation, as well as many exciting plugins available through the community marketplace.

New Streamlined Data Refinery Feature

The Streamlined Data Refinery (SDR) is a simplified, ad hoc ETL refinery composed of a series of PDI jobs that take raw data, augment and blend it through the request form, and then publish it to the BA Server for report designers to use in Analyzer.

Data Source Creation Improvements

It is now a whole lot easier to create a data source in the Pentaho User Console. The Data Source Wizard has been made more accessible from the Home perspective in PUC, and the Create Data Source button is readily apparent in the Manage Data Sources window. Simply click the button and you are ready to get started creating a new data source.

Improved Installation of JDBC Drivers

For ease of installation, we have provided a new JDBC utility that automatically places your JDBC drivers into the appropriate locations for each Pentaho system and tool. Just run the utility after you use the Installation Wizard.

New Marketplace Plugins

Pentaho Marketplace continues to grow with many more of your contributions. Pentaho Marketplace is a home for community-developed plugins and a place where you can contribute, learn, benefit from, and connect to others. New contributions include:

App Builder: An application builder for people who may not have Java knowledge, but who may have plenty of interesting ideas for new plugins. All that is required to use App Builder is knowledge of CTools and Pentaho Data Integration.

Language Packs: There are a variety of language plugins available through the Marketplace. The language packs are maintained by community members. The packs are not officially supported by Pentaho.

API Documentation for BA Platform

A new guide has been put together for OEMs who want to build custom solutions for the BA Platform, using the Pentaho API. Our API is REST-based and is programming-language independent. Your developers can use any programming language which supports REST-based APIs to create custom applications which interact with Pentaho data.

Improved Upgrade Experience and Documentation

Upgrading is easier because it is no longer a manual process. You can now upgrade from 5.1.x to 5.2 using the same upgrade utility used for patch releases. There is now only one upgrade guide instead of two, covering both BA and DI in one place.